“Give me something I can’t get on Google.”
As advisers and journalists we should always strive to teach our students something new. Every once in a while, we might actually learn something ourselves. I have used graphic organizers for my students in English II for helping control their research papers. I never considered using one in my journalism classes.
As a monthly publication, our newspaper struggles with making news timely. But if we focused on covering some stories as a feature article with information that students can’t find anywhere else, our newspapers might be more appealing.
“Don’t give me a planet, give me a ZIP code.”
In brainstorming sessions, my editor-in-chief writes on the board every story idea that is called out but we do not break the story down to specifics. By using the story mapping exercise learned today in our class, I think my students could focus those huge ideas to manageable assignments. By immediately creating something that is feasible for students to report, I think it will help them focus on their assignment.
“Read the news that people bothered to put on dead trees for you.”
I hope to be able to teach my students to write articles that have significance and echo the six elements of news value. By reading professional newspapers and looking at what other schools are doing, it will make my students better journalists and help the publication as a whole.
Brian Heyman
Pattonville High School
St. Louis, Mo.
Thanks for keeping track of great quotes. I am starting a section in my notebook for "Just Quotes" Your ideas for using the mapping exercises in your class sound great. I want to inspire my students with other student work. One of the things we did after attending MIPA this year was review other student papers that I brought back from the conference. We got so many ideas from the publications, they were inspiring-and students realized how much they have in common with all high school students...not just our school. Seeing errors is a lesson too.
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